A video purportedly from Kerala showing burqa-clad female students and male students separated by a partition wall inside a classroom has gone viral on social media, reigniting debate over gender segregation in educational spaces.
In the clip, female students in burqas can be seen seated on one side and male students on the other, divided by mid-height barriers. A male instructor, dressed in traditional attire and donning a skull cap, delivers a lecture amid purple-themed decorations, a scene that many online users have described as a stark reminder of growing Islamist influence in Kerala.
ഹിജാബിൽ തുടങ്ങി ക്ലാസ്സ് മുറികൾ ഇത്തരത്തിൽ പരിവർത്തനം ചെയ്യപ്പെടുന്ന അസമത്വ സുന്ദര കേരളമാണ് അവർ സ്വപ്നം കാണുന്നത് pic.twitter.com/Q1GkQ7mAJD
— Tom Mathews Moolamattom (@TMoolamattom) October 20, 2025
This incident comes shortly after visuals from a ‘Profcon’ event, reportedly organised by Islamist groups at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), drew similar criticism.
Those videos showed hijab-clad female students seated separately from male attendees under Taliban-style segregation, with men in the front rows and women placed behind a makeshift cloth curtain, effectively blocking visibility between the two groups.
Long hailed as India’s progressive outlier, Kerala, has over the years witnessed increased Islamist influence and spread of Wahhabi Islamic orthodoxy. This shift is fuelled by Islamist organisations and foreign funding from Gulf countries to Islamise a Hindu-majority secular India. Back in 2021, it was reported that radical Islamic organisations across the world have been financing projects that promote Islamism in India.
A Kerala-based journalist MP Basheer revealed that Islamist outfit Jamaat-e-Islami was allegedly receiving financial grants from universities in Saudi Arabia so that they could create awareness and promote Islamic dress code in Kerala and India. Jamaat-e-Islamic had started a project in India to promote the Islamic dress code for women and had access to funds from King Abdul Aziz University, an Islamic university in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Even Turkey and Pakistan have been forefront at funding radical Islamic thought in India, especially in Kashmir and Kerala.
Over the years, Kerala has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism. Be it unprecedented surge in love jihad/grooming jihad cases, imposition of Islamic beliefs in the region or participation of Keralite Muslims in Islamic terror organisations like ISIS, India’s most literate and ‘progressive’ state is becoming increasingly Talibanised or Islamised. This is not going to end well even for women defending gender-based segregation and other such regressive practices.
